


Liar

by suallenparker



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, But mostly angst, F/M, Fluff, lying, ticking bomb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 10:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1895547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suallenparker/pseuds/suallenparker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Phil is trapped on the trigger of a ticking bomb, he takes desperate measures to get Melinda to safety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liar

He’s never been this terrified before. He’s gonna die again and this time there won’t be enough of him left to revive him, but he’s strangely fine with that. He’s not fine with Melinda being here. She should be elsewhere. She could be elsewhere. She could just walk away. He keeps telling her to do so and she keeps ignoring him. His heart is racing. He’s standing on this bomb for three minutes. On the weight-sensitive trigger he stepped on, to be exact. If he hadn’t heard that warning click, he’d be dead now. They’d both be.

So much for an easy mission. Melinda and he went to this warehouse to extract some technical things Simmons had said were absolutely necessary for her to have. Fortunately nobody else from his team was here. But Melinda is kneeling next to a hole in the floor, the floor panel she had removed laying left besides her. She has her cell pressed against her ear

From where he stands, he can see the timer and a bunch of cables that vanish beneath it and connect the timer to the explosives. The timer shows two more minutes and nine seconds left.

He swallows. “May, the thing will go off. You need to leave.” He wants her to be as far away from him as possible.

She doesn’t even look at him, just keeps staring at the cables and pressing her dam cell against her ear as if that would force it to produce something useful.

“Simmons will figure something out. You’ll need me,” she says.

He needs her alive.

If Simmons would have a solution, she’d told them by now.

Two minutes and five seconds. He clenches his fists, his palms are sweaty. “Leave. That’s an order.”

This time she doesn’t react at all. She’s so damn stubborn! If he wouldn’t be trapped on the trigger, he’d pull her out of here himself. But if he wouldn’t be trapped here, they wouldn’t be in this danger all together. Gosh, he was so stupid. So very stupid. He should’ve checked before he had walked into the warehouse. He should’ve known that nobody would leave valuables like this unguarded. Damn, damn, damn. And now he would die. But he would die alone.

One minute and fifty eight seconds.

“Leave, damn it!” he hisses.

She swallows. “No.”

“Why not?” He suspects why, but he asks anyway.

“I’ve got your back.” She lifts her head and their gazes meet. “Always.” She holds his gaze for a moment before she looks back at the cables.

He means a lot to her, he knows. But he isn’t worth that. He isn’t worth her life. He needs her safe. He needs to push her out of here and he can’t use physical force and she won’t listen to him, so he has to push her away.

One minute and twenty one seconds.

“I don’t love you,” he whispers. It almost kills him. She doesn’t hear him, so he speaks up, “I don’t love you.”

She pulls up her shoulders. “I know.”

“What the-” _Hell_? She _knows_? He loves her so much it hurts. Right now she should be storming off because he dared to say such things, but she remains. Damn her, she just kneels there and the clock is ticking and she just looks at it. He pulls in a sharp breath and lifts his chin. “I mean it, May. I don’t love you. Never have. Never will.”

Fifty six seconds left and she doesn’t move.

“Leave, damn it!”

“No.” She glares at him.

His fingernails dig into his palms and it hurts. “But I don’t love you!”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does! Go!” He’s yelling and he sounds pathetic and he doesn’t care. He’s a dead man, but she has to live.

“No.”

“Go!” Forty two seconds. His heart is racing. He knows he’s in a panic but the seconds keep ticking out and she needs time to get away and she still doesn’t fucking move! Forty one, forty, thirty nine. “I want you out of here now!” He’s screaming.

She doesn’t even blink. “Once you’re safe, I’ll leave.”

“Damn it, Melinda. Go!” How can she be so calm? Thirty six seconds. “Please,” he begs, “please just leave. Please.”

She takes a breath. “You need me here.”

“I need you alive!” Thirty seconds. Twenty nine.

Suddenly, she straightens up. “Simmons!”

He can hear the scientist’s voice, but he can’t understand what she’s saying. Twenty seven. Twenty six.

“Melinda, get out!” he yells. She nods, but she isn’t listening to him, she’s listening to Simmons. Twenty two. “Melinda, damn it!” Twenty one.

She glares at him and looks back into the hole.

Twenty.

“I can see them,” she says. Nineteen. She presses her lips together. Eighteen.

“Please,” he whimpers. “Please, please …”

Seventeen. Sixteen.

“I can do that,” she says. She lays down the cell and and reaches into the hole with both hands.

Twelve. Eleven. Ten. Her hands lift cables until she grabs two. The seconds melt away. Nine, eight, seven. She’s gonna die and it’s his fault. Six. Five. Four.

She rips the cables out. Three. Three, three. The timer is stuck. Oh my God, she stopped it. Oh my God. Thank you. It’s over. They’ll live. _She’ll_ live. He takes a breath. His whole body is shaking. Oh God.

She picks up the cell. “It’s done,” she says. “We’re coming back now.”

They’re safe.

She gets up and walks out the door. She doesn’t wait. She doesn’t look back.

And now he wonders if he lost her.

  


o0o

  


He doesn’t love her.

She has to get back in there and she will. She just needs a minute. Their mission isn’t done yet. They still have to get Simmons’s technical play toys. They almost died for those, it’ll be stupid to leave without them.

She concentrates on her breathing as she puts one feet in front of the other. He doesn’t love her, she knows that. Never has, never will. She always knew that. It’s fine. It’s okay. Her chest hurts. Her stomach hurts.

He doesn’t love her.

But they can live with that. He will live with that. He’ll live. He’s safe.

Damn. She stops and presses her hands against her eyes. This was too damn close. She takes a shaky breath. Damn.

And he doesn’t love her. Maybe it’s good he said it. Maybe now she can get over him. Maybe now she can stop. She inhales and exhales. Steps come closer from behind. She knows it’s him. She knows his rhythm. And who else would it be?

“Three seconds and we both would’ve died!” he says. He sounds breathless.

As if she wouldn’t know that. As if she hadn’t been terrified she might loose him again. Three more seconds and he’d be dead. But he’s alive. She saved him. He doesn’t love her, but she _saved_ him. That’s all that matters. She just wishes he’d grant her another moment to collect herself. She loves him so very much. And she won’t stop, she knows. What she said to him was true too. That he doesn’t love her doesn’t matter. She takes her hands from her eyes and crosses her arms. She isn’t ready to face him yet. This is all too much.

“You would’ve _died_!” he says.

But she didn’t. Thanks to her they both live. She doesn’t understand why he’ still talking about it.

“ _You_ would’ve died!” he repeats.

“You would’ve died too.” She swallows.

With his right hand on her shoulder, he turns her around and lets go. “But I was standing on the damn trigger and you could’ve walked away!” His hands are shaking.

She looks at him. He’s pale. But standing on a bomb can shock someone. Her fingers dig into her arms. She wants to touch him too. She nearly lost him again and she just wants to wrap herself around him and feel he’s safe. And he doesn’t love her. “What do you want from me?” she asks.

He frowns. “Next time, you’ll walk away. Promise me.”

No. Not if there’s a chance at saving him.

“Promise me!”

She presses her lips together. She loves him. She’ll protect him as much as she damn well pleases. As she can. And he doesn’t love her.

He shakes his head. “What Garrett said …” Phil takes a breath. “That you’d follow me to the grave. I don’t want that. You can’t do that.” He shakes his head again and nibbles at his bottom lip. “If you’d die, if I’d lose you, I can’t …” His voice fades out and he sighs.

She doesn’t want to talk about what a good and dear friend she is to him. Not now. She’ll be his friend again tomorrow. Now she just wants to be his ally until her heart stops hurting so damn much.

“Melinda, what I said in there -”

“Please don’t.” She heard him loud and clear. He doesn’t love her. No reason to discuss it any further. She pulls her arms closer around herself and looks over his shoulder. “You don’t have -”

“It was bullshit.”

She pulls in a sharp breath. Please, please …

“Total and utter bullshit,” he says and swallows. “You should know that. How come you don’t know that?”

What? Everything in her freezes. What?

“I love you,” he says quietly.

He’s not making any sense. Not any at all. What?

“I love you,” he says, “and I think you love me, too and that’s why you stayed and just three more seconds, Melinda, damn it!” He shakes his head. “Next time when I’ll tell you to get out, I need you to get out!”

She swallows. “You love me?”

His fingertips graze her wrists. “Most of all.” He glides his fingers up her arms. She can feel his touch through her SHIELD jacket.

What? “But Audrey -” She turns her hands upside down and lifts them until she cups his elbows.

His palms rest on her shoulders. He swallows. “You,” he says. “I love you more.”

They stare at each other. His left hand wraps around her nape. He strokes his thumb over her throat. And she feels warm. He loves her. He does. Her heart is racing.

“Okay,” She says. She places her hands on his sides on his lower rips.

He lifts his right hand from her shoulder and cradles her face. “Okay?”

She takes a breath and nods. God. Yes. Okay. He loves her. But there is something else. She leans into his hand. “If you want to keep me safe, keep yourself safe,” she says, “because where you go, I go. And I won’t leave you behind. Not ever. Understood?”

His eyes widen. “I -”

“This is not debatable,” she cuts in. She grabs the fabric of his suit. “You died on me once, that won’t happen to me twice.”

“That doesn’t work for me.”

“That’s how it is.”

He presses his lips together.

“That’s how it is, Phil,” she repeats and licks her lips. “I love you, too.” She never thought she could say that. Not just _I love you_. But _I love you, too_. _I love you back_. She says it again. “I love you, too.”

He smiles. His gaze jumps between her eyes and her lips. When he bends down, she lifts her head. Their lips meet and he’s gentle and his mouth is soft. He nibbles on her bottom lip. His hands stroke her throat and she feels like melting. She loves him so much.

And he loves her, too.


End file.
